The workers of the just-formed New Era Windows cooperative
in Chicago—the same workers who sat in and forced Serious Energy to
back down on a hasty shutdown of their Goose Island plant a few months
ago, and famously occupied the same factory for six days in December
2008—are doing more than putting together a bold plan for worker ownership. They are likely to move the entire subject into national attention,
thereby spurring others to follow on. Though they have a powerful start,
if the past is any guide they will need all the help they can
get—financial as well as political.

The model developed in Cleveland looks beyond the individual
worker-owned company to understand how a community can support the
businesses and workers that in turn support it.

I was one of the architects of an attempt to establish a worker-owned
steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio in the late 1970s—a plan that began with
powerful intentions, the financial support of the Carter
administration, and the backing of religious and political leaders in
the state of Ohio and nationally. The plan was on track, including a
promised $100 million in loan guarantees from the Carter
Administration—until, somehow, those opposed to the plan sidetracked the
effort. The promised money conveniently disappeared just after
the 1978 elections had passed.

The Chicago workers have a much, much greater chance of success. They
have the skills they need to run a manufacturing business. They have a
good market (an energy-efficient window is a good friend in a Chicago
winter, after all), and heavy, fragile, made-to-order windows are much
less vulnerable to global competition than other products. And, thanks
to their inspiring struggle to keep their jobs, they can count on a
significant amount of public support.

Above all, their own track record of bold and brave action to defend
their jobs is promising in itself, and stirring in terms of public
response: Many more people are rooting for this company than your
average small manufacturing startup.

The workers are taking this very seriously—after all, it’s their
livelihoods on the line. For the past few months, they have been engaged
in intensive trainings in cooperative management, building the skills
they’ll need to not just make windows but market their product and
secure and fulfill contracts. They’ve been scraping together a thousand
dollars each to buy into the newly formed cooperative. And they’ve
been exploring city programs—like a Midway airport noise insulation
project and a city-wide energy retrofit effort that could generate
significant contracts.

Still, this is a tough business. If there is one lesson from the
early days of worker ownership attempts, it is that building a powerful
local and national support group of public figures, nonprofit
organizations, national labor and religious leaders, and others can be of
great and unexpected importance. It can help keep the story alive at
critical times, and also help create and sustain a market. (Churches,
for instance, buy a lot of windows, as do many other nonprofit
organizations.)

As the workers in Chicago deal with the myriad of tasks
involved in raising money, negotiating with their former employer,
Serious Energy, to purchase the factory’s equipment, and restarting
production (not to mention learning how to democratically manage their
own workplace!), building local and national alliances to support their
work is a critical task that can be taken on by allies.

What’s happening in Chicago is part of a very important national
trend: Many parts of the country are looking toward worker ownership as
a way to root jobs in the communities that need them. In Cleveland, for
instance, a community foundation, with the support of local universities
and hospitals, is helping create a network of interlinked green worker
cooperatives as part of an economic development strategy designed to
help lift devastated neighborhoods out of poverty. With an industrial
scale laundry and a solar installation and weatherization firm already
operational, and a 3.5-acre urban greenhouse scheduled to launch in a
few months, the Cleveland model is one that many other cities—including
Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.—are actively exploring today.
Crucially, the model developed in Cleveland looks beyond the individual
worker-owned company to understand how a community can support the
businesses and workers that in turn support it: In this case, the
purchasing power of the city’s largest so-called “anchor institutions”
is mobilized to develop worker-owned jobs in the very neighborhoods
these institutions call home.

Moreover, there is now a quiet trend in the union movement—away from
disinterest in new forms of ownership and towards positive assistance.
The United Steelworkers, working jointly with Mondragón (the 80,000-member complex of cooperatives in the Basque country), have
taken the lead in proposing and developing “union coops” that will
combine worker ownership and the collective bargaining process. The
Service Employees union (SEIU) has taken some interesting steps here as
well, with a worker-owned and unionized laundry slated to launch in
Pittsburgh this year, and a groundbreaking partnership with New York
City’s Cooperative Home Care Associates, the largest worker cooperative
in the United States. Also notable is a growing sophistication among
unions regarding a far more common form of U.S. worker ownership, the
ESOP, or Employee Stock Ownership Plan (which involves 10 million
workers): Unions like the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) are
taking a strong role in making sure workers’ interests are protected as
companies convert to worker ownership.

The Chicago workers’ effort is important, not only on its own terms
but as a beacon of hope and an opportunity for many others to learn
about a building an economy that perhaps will one day take us past
ownership by the 1 percent to a very different democratic model. It’s time for
others—individuals, groups, activists, churches, non-profit
organizations—to do what we can to help make sure they succeed.

Update: Since this article was first published on CommonDreams, events have demonstrated just how important broader community support is to efforts like that at New Era. Serious Energy was on track to liquidate the plant's assets instead of following through on its pledge to help the workers save their jobs, until a combination of online and offline activism—including a march on Serious Energy investors Mesirow Financial in Chicago—brought the company back to the negotiating table. Ongoing support is likely to be needed as the workers at New Era continue their fight for a cooperative workplace.

Interested?

Once a symbol of worker mistreatment and the failures of the financial
system, the famous Chicago factory may soon be run cooperatively by its
workers.

How an old business model is finding new relevance all over the world.

Gar Alperovitz: From health care to jobs to community development, why the future will be cooperative.